Joe Scarborough sets his feud with Donald Trump to music

NEW YORK (AP) — MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has set his feud with Donald Trump to music.

The "Morning Joe" host and music aficionado wrote and recorded a song, "Amnesty Don," that he posted on his public Facebook page. The country-rock tune attacks the Republican candidate for shifts in his position on immigration.

The song begins with Trump riding in from the West "with fear in his eyes and a burnt orange tan. He said he'd build a wall for us and then he up and ran. When the cowboys smell the dirty con of amnesty Don."

The song goes on to pile up its share of sophomoric anatomical references.

A year ago the former Republican congressman was facing criticism for being too friendly with Trump, who was frequently interviewed on the talk show. But Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski turned on him. Scarborough and Trump sniped at each on through Twitter through the summer.

Trump, who last week tweeted that Scarborough and Brzezinksi were "two clowns," offered no immediate comment through a spokeswoman on Thursday.

Opinions fly fast on "Morning Joe," but this took things up a notch: an on-air personality at a network that has tried the past two years to deemphasize pontificating in favor of news, ripping the Republican candidate for president.

MSNBC would not comment on the song Thursday. While Scarborough posted "Amnesty Don" on his own social media outlet, it was nowhere to be seen on the network-sanctioned "Morning Joe" website or Facebook page.

It was mentioned cryptically on "Morning Joe" once Thursday, during a discussion of Trump's immigration speech in Arizona the night before.

"You got a great song out of it. Good job," Brzezinski said.

"What are you talking about? That wasn't me," Scarborough replied, repeating a tale he told online about traveling to Amsterdam the previous day with Willie Geist and seeing a young band perform the song.

Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland, said it was one of the most effective attack ads he'd ever seen, done with enough skill to make the Hillary Clinton campaign envious.

"It's kind of the next evolutionary step in the complete amalgamation of news, politics and entertainment that this election year has done so much to accelerate," Feldstein said.

In his tweets last week, Trump — who had earlier said he had sworn off "Morning Joe" — called the program unwatchable. He tweeted that Brzezinski was "off the wall, a neurotic and not very bright mess."